I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Sat May 6 18:37:46 2000

Please see embedded comment(s) below.

Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: John Wilson <wilson_at_dbit.dbit.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2000 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'


> On Sat, May 06, 2000 at 09:21:09AM -0600, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> > I have to agree that I like
> > the Microsoft products, and that's because, unlike the offerings of
> > yesteryear, including those from Microsoft, the current generation does
seem
> > to work quite adequately to meet my requirements.
>
> Well that works out nicely for you, but for many of the rest of us, M$
> products are designed to solve problems we don't have, and totally fail
> to address the problems we *do* have. It's designed for the drooling
> masses *only*, it's absolutely not good for normal utility use by nerds.

That's because use by nerds is seldom normal.

> And even where there's overlap, the design decisions tend to be poor and
> the implementation even worse.
>
You're right, it's not for nerds to play with, it's for normal everyday
folks to use in doing useful work, not normally done by nerds. OTOH, there
are systems, notably *NIX, intended for use by nerds and almost totally
useless for useful work for a number of reasons. Keep in mind, however,
that the Win9x stuff is written by nerds. That's why it does some things so
awkwardly. These folks aren't required to do useful work with the tools
they write. . . It's a shame, actually, and they should be required to work
with it on a 1 MHz 386 with 8 MB ram and a 200 MB hard disk. Only after
they've done a normal day's work should they be allowed to eat or go to the
bathroom.
>
> I recently installed Win98SE in the hope that it would be more reliable
> for web browsing than Win98 was (on my machine, W98 was very flakey about
> connecting to the net, and the video driver ignored my settings and always
> ran in 640x480x16 mode), but the stupid thing has already locked up the
> machine several times while sitting totally idle.

This is because you're not installing your video driver correctly. It often
means you must delete the driver that appears in "Device Manager" before
proceeding. This is often a problem when W9x knows about several versions
of the same hardware. That's also why they refer to the common installation
mode as "lug-n-pray." It defaults to the lowest common denominator. If you
then install the driver precisely written for your version of the hardware
in question, it will work fine. If you're off, even by one bit, your're
stuck with the lowest common denominator, however.
>
I feel forced to point out that although the W9x isn't even near to being
perfect, it's one heck of a lot better for the "average" home user than any
version of *NIX or any other commercially offered OS. The half-day install
for OS/2 (admittedly last attempted when OS/2 was new) would certainly
discourage these "average" users. Moreover, Win9x wouldn't cost <$100 if it
weren't for the fact that the "average" user buys a computer and the
software he wants. Not only would Win9x not exist, but if it did exist in
spite of the lack of home users, it would cost like VMS. The hardware would
cost quite a bit more, too.


> > ----- Original Message -----
> [ followed by all 115 lines of a message that you weren't directly
replying to ]
>
> For chrissake!!!!!
>
> John Wilson
> D Bit
>
Received on Sat May 06 2000 - 18:37:46 BST